This interview with Distinguished Science Award recipient Louis J. Gross highlights essential computational skills for modern biology, including: (1) teaching concepts listed in the Math & Bio 2010 report; (2) illustrating to students that jobs today require quantitative skills; and (3) resources and materials that focus on computational skills.

This article describes an experiment that measures the forces acting on a flying bird during takeoff. The experiment uses a minimum of equipment and only an elementary knowledge of kinematics and Newton's second law. The experiment involves first digitally videotaping a bird during takeoff, analyzing the video to determine the bird's position as a…

Computer games such as Unreal Tournament (UT2004 and UT3) contain a "physics engine" responsible for producing believable dynamic interactions between players and objects in the three-dimensional (3D) virtual world of a game. Through a series of probing experiments we have evaluated the fidelity and internal consistency of the UT2004 physics…

The State of Maine seeks to eliminate most mercury use. This includes removing mercury thermometers from secondary schools and discouraging Hg use in other educational institutions. Alternatives to mercury thermometers in chemical laboratory work include non-mercury thermometers, temperature probes, and thermocouples. In organic chemistry mercury…

The National Curriculum for 14-16 year old students in England contains a mandatory element called "How science works". Included in this material is interpretation of data, collecting data from primary sources, using ICT tools, and developing an argument and drawing conclusions. What follows is an activity, based on magnetic braking,…

For curriculum content-related reasons, inquiry activities can be difficult in classrooms unless the activities are approached in a manner that makes variations among student group findings understandable in the context of the study. Studies of individual animals and plant reactions to stimuli, such as insect exploratory behavior, allow the…

In this paper we describe a diagnostic study to investigate students' understanding of two basic formulae in physics. Based on the findings of the study, we have developed a classroom activity focused on the interpretation of formulae. The activity was developed cooperatively by physics education researchers and high-school physics teachers and…

The study investigated the selective attentional effects of adjunct study questions inserted before or after the presentation of science flow diagrams. The basic design for the study was a post-test only control group design involving a total of 252 students randomly selected from six secondary schools in Ile-Ife, Oshun State Nigeria. These were…

This study investigated the representations of a select group of scientists (n = 10) in a sample of Canadian high school and college textbooks. Drawing on semiotic and cultural-historical activity theoretical frameworks, we conducted two analyses. A coarse-grained, quantitative analysis of the prevalence and structure of these representations…

Inquiry is a goal of science education reform. Middle school science teachers and their students can develop understanding of inquiry by using an experimental design format. Facilitating this format with the four-question strategy helps students to design their investigations. An example of varying concentrations of vinegar and water illustrates…

Case studies are an excellent method for engaging middle school students in the current work of scientists. Students learn to think like scientists as they decide how to investigate the dilemma presented in the case study. This article describes one such case study, the Fish Kill Mystery, which takes place at a popular vacation spot--the beaches…

Australia requires a flexible and scientifically literate population if we are to maintain and possibly raise our competitive edge for innovation in an ever-changing global economy (DEST, 2006). Central to achieving this outcome is a workforce of competent teachers of Science with the pedagogical expertise, subject knowledge and enthusiasm…

We use a construct-based assessment approach to measure learning progression of energy concepts across physical, life, and earth science contexts in middle school grades. We model the knowledge integration construct in six levels in terms of the numbers of ideas and links used in student-generated explanations. For this study, we selected 10 items…

The Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model is designed to foster transformative experiences (e.g., experiences with science content involving the application of that content in ways that expand perception and value in everyday experience). This study presents a case study of a high school biology teacher learning to…

This study was conducted to investigate how students approach the learning of thermochemistry, what the challenges are and how instruction can make learning of thermochemistry more accessible. Specifically, this study seeks to understand: 1) which topics in thermochemistry are more difficult to learn and which topics are easier; 2) why the…